1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for interaction with exercise machines, more specifically to systems and methods for interaction with exercise machines in order to simulate interaction with a virtual environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
It's crucial to exercise to stay in good health and has become very popular in the last few years. Indoor exercise at places such as home, office, or the gymnasium using exercise devices is the exercise choice for many people. However, exercise can be boring and repetitive, resulting in a lack of motivation to maintain an exercise program. This leads to a sizable percentage of those people to terminate their exercise program.
Two key factors can support the long term maintenance of a vigorous indoor exercise program: group participation and sensory stimulation. Indoor exercise using an exercise machine is frequently performed alone. Even when exercise is performed in a group setting, there is no direct interaction in the workouts among the individuals in the group. Moreover indoor exercise is usually performed in the same place, therefore the lack of varying stimuli increases the repetitive and boring nature of a workout. Attempts to address the problems have included placing televisions in the workout space. Because the television programs don't have any connection or correlation to the exercise, that attempt is inadequate. Others have attempted to produce video synchronized to the exercise but that approach fails to immerse the user and fails to provide selectable, visual, real-time, interactive stimulation during the exercise program.
In addition to the barrier presented by the lack of stimulus during exercise, there is an economic practicality and barrier. Currently, gymnasiums have exercise equipment and video displays. They would prefer not purchase additional equipment that could not only be costly, but occupy similar physical space to that of flight simulators, especially at a time when a many users are adopting portable computing devices.
For the above reasons it would be advantageous to provide people who exercise with systems and processes for exercise that simulates interaction with a virtual environment using a minicomputer and an exercise machine.